Thursday, September 22, 2011

Ballard Gives Nytes Her Ultimate Pay Off

Eat your heart out, Lincoln Plowman. Jackie Nytes shows how the game is played without fear of criminal indictment. She tossed several key votes to Mayor Greg Ballard over the past four years that earned her the ire of members of her Democratic caucus on the City-County Council. Each time she cast a controversial vote in favor of the Ballard administration, she was handsomely rewarded. There were plenty of city contracts for her husband's printing business, and the Mapleton-Fall Creek Development Corporation, which she ran, received more grant money from the city than any other CDC.

Tonight, Ballard handed her the final pay off she had requested: Chief Executive Officer of the Indianapolis Public Library. Forget her pathetic performance as the library's CFO when the library district spending got completely out of control after it went on a building spree that drove up property taxes and left the district financially strapped. She stepped up and voted for every lousy proposal Ballard put before the council where her vote made the difference, whether it was the CIB bailout vote, the sale of the city's utility assets or the one-side parking meter lease deal with Ballard's favorite Pay To Play contractor, ACS. No other member of the council, Republican or Democrat, except for Ryan Vaughn, received as much in consideration for their vote and support as Jackie Nytes received. Not surprisingly, Ballard is unabashedly hailing his sell out appointment of a person who is anathema to everything Republicans are supposed to represent to the position she has fought to get for years:

I salute the Indianapolis Public Library Board on its selection of Jackie Nytes for this position. Her dedication to public service and commitment to improving our community and the lives of our residents will undoubtedly have a profound impact in this new role. We look forward to continuing our work together to strengthen our library system and our neighborhoods.

Yep, just one more reason this life-long Republican will never cast a vote to re-elect this Benedict Arnold as mayor. I predicted this would happen just the moment the current occupant of this position announced her retirement. The only thing you can expect Nytes to do in her role is play as many games with the budget as she enjoyed doing when she served as the library's controller and exactly what she has relished doing as a player in budget-writing as a council member. She was a chief architect of the 2008 Peterson budget that Ballard has descried repeatedly since taking office four years ago. Transparency is not a word in Nytes' vocabulary. If you hadn't already figured it out, it's also not a word in Ballard's vocabulary--at least as you and I understand the word to mean.

UPDATE: How laughable. A story in today's Star on Nytes' appointment begins: "After a nationwide search, the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library Board ultimately found that the person with the best qualifications to lead the beleaguered system was right here at home." What an insult to legitimate librarian professionals. The Board plans to approve a contract that pays Nytes somewhere between $125,000 to $150,000 a year.

6 comments:

CircleCityScribe said...

Mayor Greg Ballard wasted no time in delivering the payoff to the CDC which employed City-County Councilor Jackie Nytes in consideration for her sole vote among Democratic councilors in support of the $21 million a year tax & spend (and borrow) bailout plan for the Capital Improvement Board. Nytes has a made a career out of using government service to line her and her husband's own pockets.

Library CEO??? (cough, puke) What single qualification does this lefty, tax and spend Democrat have?

Machine politics....

Downtown Indy said...

On the other hand, national searches gave us the IPS superintendent and Indianapolis airport CEO. Those haven't work out too well either.

Gary R. Welsh said...

Eugene White came from the Washington Township School system.

Paul K. Ogden said...

Gary, who had the decision, the Board? Are Board members all Ballard appointments? Are some appointed by the Council? I didn't see where this was every clarified in any reporting.

As we know, the Ballard administration expects appointed Board members to do whatever he tells them to, so I'm not surprised by the result.

Gary R. Welsh said...

The council and commissioners split appointments. The public schools collectively have reps on the board as well. The council appointees are Rs who vote as Ballard wants them to vote. Nytes has been able to cut plenty of deals with all of that CDC money Ballard has showered on her to curry favor with the commissioner's appointees. An audit of how Mapleton-Fall Creek spent some of its money over the past several years would turn up some very interesting findings.

Downtown Indy said...

I stand corrected, except on the part about not working out well.